Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire "Hikers" - lack of outdoor skills, and loss of Scouting

I started honing my survival skills at a young age and then the military taught me more, then over 10 years on a mountain rescue team allowed me to witness first hand how many knuckleheads and psychos there are in the backcountry. As has been mentioned , something is way off with this chicka, my gut tells me she was looking for attention, maybe a future payday with her "survival story". Anyhoo, this chick does have crazy eyes, so there is that!

I was in the Boy Scouts in England first, they had much cooler dark green uniforms, nicer patches and a green beret. Only camped out once, Gilwell Park, Epping Forest a really big deal of a trip in that time and place.

I was in the Boy Scouts here too, never could warm up to the khakis, I did however go on some great campouts. I fondly recall freezing my a$$ off all night long one night in April of '71 in Upstate NY after believing the hype about "Space Blankets", that little plastic tarp with silver on one side

OTOH I find it hard to fathom now that the Leaders didn't check all our gear before we headed out.

I never experienced a hint of perversion during my time in the Scouts.

OTOH I never suspected anything during my time at an Irish Catholic Grammar School in England when I was a kid, but it turns out at least one of the ten Christian Brothers was an active pedophile.

A lot of stuff could have slipped by back then.

Wouldn't a person at least 3 gallons of water to survive for 12 days in the bush?

I think the fact that no details have been released suggests that there is some question about her story.

I was in the Scouts as well as a few years with the Royal Rangers (First Assembly of God based version). No pervert stuff from my time. Fondest memory was probably some large group camping all in tents (adults in big tents / kids in pup tents). The kids had to set them all up with the occasional guidance from the leaders but no hands on. 7-11 year olds if I have it right in the memory bank because I don't remember my brother there (3 years younger).

About the most terrible thing I remember was us cutting guy wires on a "rival troops" camp. Real tough guys! Of course had we got caught there is no telling what would have happened when we got home.

I never experienced a hint of perversion during my time in the Scouts.

OTOH I never suspected anything during my time at an Irish Catholic Grammar School in England when I was a kid, but it turns out at least one of the ten Christian Brothers was an active pedophile.

A lot of stuff could have slipped by back then.[/quote]

You must've been an ugly kid lol

Sir, You would not believe the amount of young women I run across out in the wilderness trails around the country, most always in bad spots taking selfies.

I blame television giving them a false sense of independence.

I heard there was a story circulating through the SAR (Search and Rescue) community that she “had fallen and hit her head, causing a concussion and other injuries, and then stayed put close to a stream so she had water to drink until someone found her.” This was passed along by my neighbor who is one of the heads of the Dade County SAR Team here who gets deployed to all sorts of disasters to render aid. I told him, after about a day of that crap, I would have been walking out, concussion or not. The story seems highly unlikely as does the entire “experience” this woman had. The only thing I’ve heard which makes any sense here (assuming her actions were not intentional to help facilitate fraudulent go fund me account payments), is that she had some type of mental breakdown or mental illness, and took off out to the wild to intentionally die.

I’d really love to hear the real story.

You define Homo sapiens as having a few screws loose because they seek to recharge their batteries with some sounds and sights of nature of God’s Creation? By God, I know an old Marine that has hiked the Appalachian Trail all the way through at least 4 times. Even in his 80s you would not get away with saying he was a “half a bubble of plumb”
Knowing him, he would guffaw at you sitting around in Argyle socks, in front of a fake fireplace, with Treasure Island in your lap for your version of an escape.

You must've been an ugly kid lol [/quote]

Coulda been, but I was a day student, who got victimized were the kids who boarded there at night. The guy would call them into his office and jerk them off.

Flat amazing what used to get overlooked back then in the 60’s, this only came out years later.

I quit S&R because of some of the people I was involved with finding...people with absolutely no business being in the backcountry, let alone with their families.

2 specific examples that stand out:

1 didn't deal with S&R, but I came across a big fat dude with his wife and two kids right on the edge of the Pintler Wilderness in Montana. They were supposedly hiking the Continental Divide trail. Next to no camping gear with them, and this was in early May with snow on the ground. The kids were shivering and half delirious from hypothermia. Somehow the guy lost his wallet crossing a creek, or something....I didn't ask questions but drove them all to town and kicked their (his, specifically) ass out at a gas station.
2. Guy from Texas brings his family up to Montana and decides to rent some snow machines. They didn't make it back to their lodge that evening so out we got the call and went out first thing the next morning. We found them with their machines buried in several feet of snow at -25 degrees. I brought one 13-14 year old girl out on my snow machine who I believe lost some toes due to frostbite.

There's been others over the years, but these two stand out to me, for some reason. I've brought a few lost people and families out of the back country that I stumbled upon while riding out with my pack train. It's amazing how clueless some people are to the dangers of the backcountry.

Were it not for dumb people SAR would be less fun.


mike r

We took some kids from a children's home camping, in the high country, once.
One panicked and ran off (had left his coat on a tree branch).
Getting colder, after sundown, I tracked him by flashlight ~3/4 mile.
At around 1 in the morning we got a call in to the State Police.
I went up the trail with a few of the 1st on scene, found tracks - and told them "He's come out!"
Their "expert tracker" didn't believe me, but one searcher went with me - the other way.
About 200 yards up a mountain road, the kid came walking out.
We fed him, and got him back to camp.

Later, we had a meeting, where I told all the kids -
"If you've never been "lost" you've never spent much time outdoors. Don't be ashamed.
The worst mistake you can make is climbing the next mountain to see something.
Go downhill - you'll run into a powerline, a creek, or a road.
All of which (downhill) will get you to a village, or a house - where you can get help."

If that kid had come down, and turned right, instead of left, (downhill) and rounded a curve around a boulder - he'd have seen a house ~ 200 yards down the road.
Also told them "The trick is to NOT get hurt!"

My grandfather taught me about fishing - did it well - we had many good times.

If anyone had taught me about hunting, shooting, exploring forests and mountains, navigating with a map and compass, etc., etc., as a kid, I would have considered it heavenly. No one did. Left a big vacant hole.

Once married and having our first daughter, got that initial college degree and immediately came to the SW. Got squared away with my work and family and very soon started a heavy effort to learn and do all of the stuff I had missed - had been waiting a long time. Hit it hard by reading, talking with knowledgeable people and DOING. Kept it going and growing for 40 years - great rewards. Had first grand kids by then.

By then we also lived in the right/best place surrounded by Nat Forest past the fence, and the stream of grand kids came for lots of visits. Even number of girls and boys, and they sometimes brought friends.

They were eager - learned shooting skills, weather factors, forest safety and survival skills, use of compass (each were given their own to keep) for creating and following a route (regularly stop to look back) and reversing the trail to home. We kept upping the challenges - good kids love to be challenged.

Eventually they would set out early morning for a day on their own - older ones as leaders. Always took firearms. Toward the end, they LOVED ending the day somewhere "way out there" and having a camp. making the fire, cooking something simple, waking up with the day break. Using a compass and showing me how to get back to our place. I was overjoyed.

The youngest two are almost adults and soon will finish HS - but I still see all of them as the little twerps with dirt under the fingernails, rumpled hair, one shoe untied, squinting to close one eye and g-e-n-t-l-y squeeze, then racing one another to the targets.

Each knows at least a little bit about personal freedom and self-reliance.

Why are we here?

Prefering relative solitude in nature sounds
better than keeping up cheap appearances
at lost sheep church gatherings.

Ya done good there Grandpa

I get my sig line from my all-time favorite speech on education, 1744, Canasetego, an Iroquois Statesman, in reply to an offer by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to educate some of their young men.

We know that you highly esteem the kind of learning taught in those colleges, and that the maintenance of our young men, while with you, would be very expensive to you. We are convinced, therefore, that you mean to do us good by your proposal, and we thank you heartily. But you who are wise must know that different nations have different conceptions of things; and you will therefore not take it amiss if our ideas of this kind of education happen not to be the same with yours.

We have had some experience of it: several of our young people were formerly brought up at the colleges of the northern provinces; they were instructed in all your sciences; but when they came back to us, they were bad runners; ignorant of every means of living in the woods; unable to bear either cold or hunger; knew neither how to build a cabin, take a deer, or kill an enemy; spoke our language imperfectly; were therefore neither fit for hunters, warriors, or counsellors; they
were totally good for nothing.

We are, however, not the less obliged by your kind offer, though we decline accepting it: and to show our grateful sense of it, if the gentlemen of Virginia will send us a dozen of their sons, we will take great care of their education,instruct them in all we know, and make men of them.

If I were King, being a competent runner, knowing how to live in the woods, bear cold and hunger, build a cabin, take a deer, kill an enemy and compose a concise yet eloquent argument would all be prerequisites for graduation. Might even cause more kids to stay in school.

I gotta look for the Lost Sheep Church

OTOH

Many a pilgrim comes into the mountains seeking something their natures couldn't get them down below, comes to nothing. B.C.C. Lapp.

I have news for you, Ace. "old Marines" don't have to "find" themselves or their "happy place." carry on...

Good post

250 years ago some backwoodsman probably laughed at some greenhorn that needed a compass and a map.

I have no experience with the Scouts but having read some of their material and principles it seemed pretty sound.

That being said I have never met anyone that was in the program that really knew schit about the outdoors.

They all seem heavy on knowledge and light on experience.